The fun things we do

sun catcher

I’ve been wanting to do something festive for the fall season. Originally I was thinking that we could make the pumpkins in to Jack-O-Lanterns by cutting faces on them, but then decided against it since Sophia’s scissor skills aren’t up to that task yet.

What you will need:

Liquid watercolors (can be replaced with food coloring)

Cups for your watercolors

Pipettes (you can get ones from your pharmacy)

Coffee filters

Scissors

Pencil

Wet wipes (for clean up)

Baking sheet

Cling wrap

Oven (not necessary)

Liquid Watercolors

Set up: Place a cling wrap on your baking sheet.

I chose to use red, orange, yellow, and brown liquid watercolors for our pumpkins. For each of the colors in a cup I put about a 1/4 inch of water and added a bit of the watercolor in.

So excited!

First I sketched a pumpkin shape in pencil on to a filter that I wanted to use as a template. Cut out several filter pumpkins at the same time to with the template until you have cut out as many as you want to make. Place pumpkins on top of the cling wrap on the baking sheets. I put 2 pumpkins on top of each other (one pile had 3, we made sure to put extra paint on that one) since I only had 2 baking sheets to use and didn’t want to try to transfer wet filters.

Painting away

I found these spill proof paint cups on Walmart.com and I’m happy to say they worked great. I love that they come with lids so you can store paint in them as well.

Fun squirting paint

Let your child explore and mix colors to their hearts content.

Fun mixing colorsWet Painted Pumpkins

The colors will be more vibrant when wet. You want to make sure there is plenty of paint on the filters unless you are looking to have very muted colors.

All painted!

I placed the pumpkins in the oven to dry, with just the oven light turned on for a small source of heat. I wanted the end results to be as vibrant in color as possible, so I wanted all the paint to dry on to the coffee filters. It took about 5 hours for the hearts to fully dry.

TIP: You can remove the pumpkins off the cookie sheets and set to dry on a dry surface. Note that the colors will not be as bright if you do this though.

Drying out in the oven with the light on

Once the filters have dried you can tape them on to a window and the sun will light them up beautifully.

I decided that with our painted doilies we would make glittery Valentines sun catchers.

Glittery hearts in the window

What you will need:

Scissors

Black cardstock

Glitter

Contact paper

Pencil

Doilies of your liking

Wet wipes (for clean up)

Baking sheet

At first I was thinking we would glue the glitter to the frame but then we decided to put the glitter all over the contact paper instead.

Materials (we didn’t end up using the glue stick)

Cut out a suitable frame for your doilies.

TIP: If working with a toddler you may want have some extra space in the frame for placement of the doilies.

Sizing out the opening on the first frame

After you are satisfied with your frame, if you are making multiples like we were, use the cut out frame as a stencil and lightly trace it on to the remaining cardstock.

Once you have one frame sized to your liking, lightly trace it on the others with a pencil

I chose to have the contact paper pieces not cover the whole frame. I wanted it about half way on the frame so I measured it out as shown below, leaving roughly two edges out.

Measuring out the contact paper

The front piece of contact paper I wanted to be even smaller (as at this point I was still thinking of gluing glitter on the frame). I used one cut out piece and measured a slightly larger piece for it.

Measuring out the smaller piece of contact paper. I didn’t want it to be much larger than the opening

Once you have all your cutting done place the larger piece over the opening, as shown below.

TIP: If you aren’t planning on doing anything to the frame it is easier to make them the same size for the front and back.

Place the contact paper over the openingReady to place hearts

Let your little one place the hearts as they desire.

Hearts all set in their frames

For glitter portion you want to place the frames in to a baking pan or tray of some sort to contain all the glitter.

Ready to glitter

Sophia wanted to show the kids how to glitter 🙂 Video below

Glitter fun

After glitter has been placed you will want to shake or (rub with a finger) the excess glitter around so they aren’t in big piles.

Place the smaller piece of contact paper over the top opening

After you are done, place the remaining piece of contact paper over the top to seal it in.

This is a great project for boys and girls. This can be done with any free coloring pages you find to your liking online. I found some cute teddy bears, Pooh characters, even a super cute Ninjago one (link here). Just Google for free Valentine coloring pages.

Hello Kitty Stained Glass Valentine

What you will need:

Printer and computer/tablet/or smart phone and a sheet of printer paper

Painting sun catchers is a lot of fun. It is quick, easy, cheap, and a great rainy day activity. What better to do on a gloomy rainy day than dream of the sun 🙂

Sun catchers can be bought in kits or separately. I bought mine separate and found the paint sold alone at Hobby Lobby. If you are buying separate make sure the paint is for sun catchers specifically. The different shapes you can get at Walmart or Hobby Lobby or other craft store generally they are $0.50 a piece.

These will make a great gifts for family members. The shapes do come in holiday themes as well.

What you will need:

Sun catcher shapes

Sun catcher paint

Paint brushes

String to hang the finished project

set up to paint sun catchers

TIP: The sun catcher paint will stain your skin if not wiped off right away.

TIP: Use a different brush for each color to help minimize colors mixing in the container

Painting Sun Catcher Cupcake

TIP: Open only one color at a time to help minimize mess, mixing of colors, and spills.

Painting Sun Catcher Elephant

TIP: You may want to limit the amount of colors used per sun catcher. A bunch of colors mixed together will end in a brownish result in the end. The cupcake I allowed her to use 6 colors and the elephant I limited it to only 4.